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Now if you evuh wanna call up de Devil, don't furgit dat he gonna test you out good an' dat he ain't gonna show up de first Sunday you goes out to de forks of de road an' calls 'im; he ain't gonna show up no sooner'n de third time you calls 'im an' maybe not den - from Jim Finn on Calling Up the Devil in J. Mason Brewer's American Negro Folklore

Author Topic: Mississippi Sheiks Lyrics  (Read 45909 times)

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Bruno

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Hello,
Thanks to John C., Tom and Uncle Bud for the new comments. It becomes apparent that some blues songs are difficulty to understand not only for the ears of a Frenchman. The book Screening the Blues by Paul Oliver you mentioned seems to be very interesting.  Is it still available?
Bruno

Offline uncle bud

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Screening the Blues is indeed still available, from Da Capo Press, ISBN 0306803445.

Listed at Amazon in France: http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/0306803445/qid=1131463179/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/171-8896254-5859466

Other essays in the book include "The Santy Claus Crave" (Santa gets a lot of press in the Blues, as it turns out), the "Forty-Fours" (examining the many incarnations of the piano piece through the blues repertoire), "Policy Blues" (policy games in the blues, and I still don't get how policy works), "Joe Louis and John Henry" (the prizefighter in the blues), and the big final chapter "The Blue Blues" (bawdy blues, obscenity, censorship, naughty bits etc.). Highly recommended, lots of lyric transcriptions, too.

Yves

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Hi Bruno

it looks that we are (at least) two French weenies ?

Where are you ?

Yves "the froggy"

Offline GhostRider

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Bruno and Yves:

If both of you had posted your pins on the Members Map, you'd know here you both were.

Alex

Bruno

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Hello Yves and Alex,
I am sorry to clutter the subjet up with personal question but the fact is that I don't know what to do with the Member map. I can't see any map and only lists if commercial adverstisements and mails or, in the bottom of the page, a place for posting photos. As regards Yves's question I live near Paris.
Regards
Bruno

Offline Slack

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If you are using a Mac -- they are "working on it' - so it is not quite ready for Mac computers.

Bruno

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Thank you Slack,
I am indeed using a Mac.

nixpix

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The Jazz Fiddler Lyrics - Mississippi Sheiks
« Reply #52 on: November 19, 2005, 08:50:58 PM »
Now that I can play the chord progression to his song I'm tired of just humming the tune. What are the lyrics? Thanks

« Last Edit: July 17, 2020, 06:23:40 AM by Johnm »

Offline Bunker Hill

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Re: The Jazz Fiddler Lyrics - Mississippi Sheiks
« Reply #53 on: November 19, 2005, 11:52:40 PM »
Now that I can play the chord progression to his song I'm tired of just humming the tune. What are the lyrics? Thanks
Being a dance tune the lyrics are totally repetative thus:

Spoken: No fooling now

Listen here, people, gonna play a little tune.
It's the jazz violin and the [Mississippi coon?].
It's too bad, it's too, listen to that old violin.
Pick up your fiddle and take up your bow.
This is a tune all fiddlers ought to know.
It's too bad, it's too bad.

Boys, there's something you never have seen.
A man playin' jazz on a violin.
It's too bad, it's too, listen to that old violin.
A quick finger and a shakin' bow.
A super heel and a tickle toe.
It's too bad, it's too bad.

Boys, there's something you never have seen.
A man playin' jazz on a violin.
It's too bad, it's too, listen to that old violin.
Quick finger and a shakin' bow.
A super heel and a tickle toe.
It's too bad, it's too bad.

Boys, there's something you never have seen.
A man playin' jazz on a violin.
It's too bad, it's too, listen to that old violin.
Quick finger and a shakin' bow.
Super heel and a tickle toe.
It's too bad, it's too bad.

There are apparently two takes of this but I don't know which I've transcribed - it's from a none too clean copy on an 80s Matchbox LP. So please correct as appropriate.

nixpix

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Re: The Jazz Fiddler Lyrics - Mississippi Sheiks
« Reply #54 on: November 20, 2005, 09:49:22 PM »
Bunker Hill, thanks, that's just what I need!
-Nick

megapeg

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Re: The Jazz Fiddler Lyrics - Mississippi Sheiks
« Reply #55 on: February 08, 2006, 01:48:51 AM »
That's not quite how I hear it.... here's my take:

Listen here, people, gonna play a little tune
It's the jazz version* of a Mississippi tune**
It's too bad, it's too... listen to that old violin
Pick up your fiddle and pick up your bow
This is a tune all fiddlers ought to know
It's too bad, it's too bad.

Boy, is this something you never have seen
A man playin' jazz on a violin
It's too bad etc.
A quakin' finger and a shakin' bow
A stoopin'*** heel and a tickle toe
It's too bad etc.

*Old Mississippi pronounciation of "version" would be "voy-zhun"
**This may be: It's a jazz version of "The Mississippi Coon" - anyone know of a tune by that name?  Certainly sounds like it could be the name of a tune, I'm just not familiar with one.
***"Stoopin'" is another old Southern dialectal phrase, meaning "stompin'".

Offline uncle bud

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Re: The Jazz Fiddler Lyrics - Mississippi Sheiks
« Reply #56 on: February 08, 2006, 07:39:11 AM »
Welcome to WeenieCampbell, megapeg. Thanks for the input on these lyrics. My ear agrees with your changes. It does sound to me like the line is "It's the jazz version of The Mississippi Coon." I couldn't find a reference to a song with this title (an exhaustive five minute Google search and a scan of the index of Paul Oliver's Songsters and Saints), but that's what I'm hearing. It certainly wouldn't be surprising that such a song exists. Oliver mentions several with similar titles. In addition to the obvious Mysterious Coon, and Traveling Coon, there's Hypnotizing Coon, and The Sensitive Coon. No doubt several others existed.

megapeg

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Re: The Jazz Fiddler Lyrics - Mississippi Sheiks
« Reply #57 on: February 08, 2006, 03:26:21 PM »
Thanks for the welcome, Uncle Bud.  I stumbled here on a search for that ever-elusive line in "The Georgia Crawl".... I haven't been able to figure it out for the life of me.  "Don't even mind dyin'", "Don't need a bright dime", "Don't need to buy time".... who knows.  I saw the discussion, and still, none of them seem *quite* right.  Have you tried using the Amazing Slow-Downer to figure out lyrics?  You can change the eq a little bit to push the vocals up, and slow the song down without changing the key.... it's been a HUGELY helpful resource for me in figuring out some of these lyrics.  I'm not even a musician, my husband is, I was a linguistics major in college, though, so parsing songs has become my designated territory.   :P

Offline frankie

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Re: The Jazz Fiddler Lyrics - Mississippi Sheiks
« Reply #58 on: February 08, 2006, 03:31:39 PM »
I listened to this earlier today, but can't say that I quite agree about version, however it might be pronounced.  I don't have any plausible alternatives, and have always kinda moved past that verse as quickly as possible when singing it!  Sounds almost like there's a long 'i' sound in there after the word 'jazz'...  If I get a chance, I'll listen to the transfer on Folks, He Sure Do Pull Some Bow", which I think is cleaner than the one on the document CD I have acces to right now.

The other changes are great - never would have guessed "stoopin'"...

Hell, it's mostly a 'playing' song, anyway!

Offline frankie

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Re: The Jazz Fiddler Lyrics - Mississippi Sheiks
« Reply #59 on: April 02, 2006, 06:54:12 AM »
It's the jazz version* of a Mississippi tune**

I think what I hear in this spot is:

It's the jazz violin of a Mississippi coon

 


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